Chapter 5: The Call She'd Been Avoiding
By the time I had carried the last box inside and set it at the foot of the guest-room bed, David was on the phone with Dr.
Ellison's office rescheduling a consultation, and Sarah was in the kitchen quietly washing the three cups I'd left on the table.
I stood in the hallway, listening to the ordinary sounds of the house.
Then I picked up my phone and called Carol back.
She answered on the first ring.
"Mom." Her voice was careful in the way voices get when someone has been waiting and has already decided how the conversation should go.
"Carol," I said.
"I saw your call."
"I know.
I'm glad you called back." A pause.
"How are you?"
"I've had an interesting morning," I said.
"You?"
She didn't answer the question.
That told me everything.
"I talked to David last night," she said.
I sat down on the edge of my bed, in the master bedroom, with the door closed.
The afternoon light came in through the curtains and fell across my husband's reading chair.
"Did he tell you?" I asked.
"About the diagnosis?
Yes." Her voice shifted.
"Mom, I'm worried."
"So am I."
"I mean about you.
About the situation there." A pause.
"David told me what Sarah asked you to do this morning.
With the bedroom."
I was quiet for a moment.
"He told you that?"
"He called me last night, before they went to sleep.
He was upset.
He said he thought Sarah had gone too far but he didn't know how to stop it." Her voice tightened.
"Mom, I should have called you then.
I should have called you weeks ago, when David first told me about the diagnosis.
I'm sorry I didn't."
Something loosened in my chest, slowly.
"Why didn't you?" I asked.
A long pause.
"Because I didn't know what to say.
And because I was angry."
"At me?"
"No." She sounded surprised by the question.
"At the situation.
At David for keeping it from you so long.
At Sarah for—" She stopped herself.
"I was trying to figure out how to help without making it worse.
And the longer I waited, the harder it got to call."
I looked at my husband's chair.
"Carol," I said.
"He has cancer."
"I know, Mom."
"Early stage.
Good prognosis.
But still."
"I know." Her voice broke on the second word, just slightly, just enough.
"Are you all right?" I asked.
She laughed — a short, wet sound.
"I'm calling to check on you and you're asking if I'm all right."
"That's what mothers do."
She was quiet for a moment.
Then: "I want to come.
I can get time off work.
I can be there by the weekend if you need me."
"Let me think about that," I said.
"Mom—"
"I'm not saying no.
I'm saying let me think." I paused.
"Things are different here than they were this morning.
Something shifted."
"Sarah?"
"She apologized," I said.
"I don't know yet what that means.
But she said it, and she meant some of it."
Carol was quiet.
I could hear her breathing on the other end of the line.
"Is David okay?" she asked finally.
"Really?"
"He's frightened," I said.
"He's been carrying this alone for two months, and that's made him do things he wouldn't otherwise do.
Or allow things, which is almost the same."
"He should have told us sooner."
"Yes," I said.
"He should have."
"Will you tell me what you need?" Carol asked.
"Not what you think I want to hear.
What you actually need."
I thought about that for a moment.
"I need someone who knows the whole story," I said.
"And I need to know you're not going to call David the moment we hang up and tell him every word I said."
"I won't."
"Promise me."
"I promise, Mom."
I exhaled.
"Then I need to tell you something I haven't told him yet.
Something I found in the guest room when I was packing their things this morning."
The line was very still.
"What did you find?" Carol asked.
I looked at the small folded piece of paper sitting on my dresser — the one I'd found tucked inside one of Sarah's jacket pockets while I was packing, and slipped quietly into my own hand without examining it until I was alone.
I had unfolded it only once, in the kitchen, while the kettle was heating.
It was a document.
A single printed page.
At the top, in clean professional type, were four words I hadn't expected.
*Preliminary Property Transfer Inquiry.*
And below that, my address.
May you like
"Carol," I said.
"How quickly can you get here?"
